


Sorry

by Davechicken



Series: The Pilot and his Knight [10]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6213442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fight wasn't even about anything important...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorry

By the time Kylo realises what’s happening, it’s already much too late to do anything about it. Much, much too late. And all the talking this through in advance, all the acknowledgements that their relationship will be harder than most, doesn’t _begin_ to prepare you for the days it doesn’t click. The days when, for whatever reason, the world feels out of joint. Like you wake up and even the quality of light offends you, and you are sure that someone’s cheery ‘Hello!’ is them mocking your mood, and everything is cast in the most negative version possible. No matter how hard you try, your inner filter is muddied over, and until it cleans off, things suck. Majorly. Galactically.

It’s not like it’s Poe’s fault that Kylo feels like this. It’s not even like it’s anyone’s fault, really. But that doesn’t stop him lashing his lover with his tongue over something so trivial that now he can’t even remember why he was upset about it in the first place. Whatever it was, it was important enough to rain down the fires of self-righteous fury, insist he was wrong, demand recompense and then refuse any reconciliation as false and unmeaning. Important enough to make himself _impossible_ to deal with, out of some inner spite.

The hardest part of it is that Kylo… sort of knew. A third of the way through, he knew his volatile nature was blowing things out of proportion. He knew his hurled insults and demands were absolutely pointless, and Poe’s firm attempts to reason with him just hit a duracrete wall inside his head. Kylo didn’t want to be reasoned with. He didn’t want things to make sense. He wanted to **shout** , and Poe was the unfortunate vessel for his vitriol. 

…and when he’d realised, a part of him had wanted to stop. It had. But to stop would be to admit he was wrong, or petty, or childish. It would be to admit he’d made mistakes, and he just wasn’t ready to say ‘sorry’, so he carried on with the terrible momentum, that impossible impetus that he couldn’t check.

Perhaps he should have walked off and sliced something up until he felt better. That used to help with the worst of his tantrums, though Poe had told him he wanted him to work through things, if possible. To reason, to discuss, to talk. 

Some days you just want to set things on fire because fire is really nice to watch, and because if you cut enough things up, then the lactic-acid burn in your muscles and the oxygen-heavy panting makes your body feel **alive**.

Poe is usually level-headed, of course. Maybe a side-effect of his career, or maybe why he got that job in the first place. A thrill-seeking element, a desire to play the hero and the martyr, but also an ability to think under pressure and to corral his subordinates to doing what’s needed. Which means - usually - that Poe can talk him down before it gets to the point of yelling. _Usually_. But today, today Kylo was just too ornery and for whatever reason they both raised their voices and now Kylo is off, away from everyone, holding onto the hilt of his saber and eyeing the landscape for things he might possibly take his aggression out on.

But it’s not aggression, now. It’s like the wave of rage has crested, broken everything it could touch, and left him raw and sad in its wake. He doesn’t feel better, doesn’t feel relieved, or like there’s been a release, or catharsis. He feels drained, and sort of cold, and more than a little afraid that he’s broken things forever.

He said things he really doesn’t mean, said them because he knew they would hurt. He lashed out with all the knowledge one confidant has of another, using his closeness to needle at the soft spots in Poe’s psyche. It was ugly. It was horrible. He hates himself for it, and he doesn’t think Poe could - or should - ever forgive him.

Which is why he doesn’t look up when he hears the footsteps, just keeps on holding his hilt. Sliding his fingers a little over body-warm metal, and–

“Not planning on using that on me, are you?”  


Kylo flinches. It hurts, even as a joke, to be asked that. He might have yelled, but he never meant to do anything to _wound_ Poe. 

“No.”  


“I was joking.” Poe shifts his weight back and forth, back and forth. Heel to toe, and his boots creak, leather around bone, as he does so. “Didn’t mean to sound…”  


“No. I… no. I knew.” He also knows Poe is here to make up with him, and that he isn’t helping out with that. He puts the saber hilt down, and doesn’t manage to look up. “I’m… I’m sorry.”  


“Me too.”  


Four words. Two each. Kylo wishes it felt like it fixed things, but somehow just saying words doesn’t feel like enough. He looks up, and he sees Poe… has he been crying, too? Or just close? Seeing his pilot’s eyes red and puffy, and his jawline wavering, makes him feel like the worst piece of shit that ever existed. He did that. He hurt Poe. Poe, who has been nothing but loving and supportive, and doesn’t deserve a horrid boyfriend who snaps at him and storms off to sulk outside the base.

Tears threaten in his own eyes, and he feels crippled by the wave of guilt in his core. Crippled by how _much_ he wishes he hadn’t done this. “You don’t understand,” he insists. “I’m - I’m _really_ sorry, Poe. I - I–”

“I understand.” Poe’s voice is breaking, too, and Kylo just wants that hurt to go away. “Believe me, Kylo, I understand.”  


Wants it to go away, and knows he might well make it happen again. And again. And again.

“Can we… can we just… can we just get to the part where we both admit we were wrong, and… and we say we forgive one another?”  


Kylo is struck by how small Poe sounds when he asks that, and - and… He drops his saber to the ground, and bounds over, wrapping his arms around him in the biggest hug he can give. Poe’s arms come up a second later, and then there’s rocking and stroking and nosing and whispered promises and Kylo tells himself he’ll try harder. No. Not just himself…

“I was an ass,” he says, by Poe’s ear, somewhere between both of their tears. “I just… I was upset, and–”  


“I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”  


“You didn’t.”  


“I did.”  


Okay, maybe he did a little. “I was still the one who started it.”

“…can we maybe not do the blame thing, and instead do the thing where we just… feel a bit better, and talk about how not to do it again when I don’t feel like I’m going to lose you?” Poe asks.  


Lose him. Kylo was the biggest asshole in the galaxy, for no reason, and Poe’s worry is that he’ll _lose him_? He grips him so hard it’s almost Wookie-level embrace, and Poe yelps and slaps at him and then he eases off and laughs against his cheek.

“You won’t get rid of me unless you want to,” Kylo promises. “It’s me who doesn’t deserve _you_.”  


“Just… come home,” Poe begs. “Come home. Let’s watch something stupid, and hold each other. I need you, Kylo. I love you.”  


“I love you, too.” He swallows, and it hurts when Poe tucks his head under his chin, burrowing in close. Hurts in his heart. “Okay. Okay. Home.”  


He grabs his saber with the Force, and clips it back to his belt. Arms wrapped around him, the slightest hint of distance **unbearable** on the walk back home. He doesn’t deserve him, he really doesn’t. But for as long as Poe thinks this is right, he’s going to do his damndest to be worthy of him.


End file.
